So I was cruising through my normal download site and found a download for this single by a group called "Piggy Dolls." Thinking it was another foreign misunderstanding of English, I googled it.

Another girl group has debuted in the industry, but this time with a twist: all three members of “Piggy Dolls” are of rubenesque proportions, with the combined weight exceeding 200kg. Comprised of Park Ji Eun, Kim Min Sun, and Lee Jiyeon, the group debuted on January 6th with their mini-album, “Piggy Style,” on various music sites.

Their title track “TREND” is especially fascinating in that it features lyrics expressing their personal feelings on their image. “I’m always confident, I don’t care about anything else, what’s wrong with my body? My face is unique.”

The group expressed, “We think our team name fits well with our members. As you can see, we really are ‘piggy dolls.’ (laughter)”

Min Sun continued, “All three of us naturally gain a lot of weight. We like eating so we eat. We can eat about 20kg of rice in three weeks.”

When asked about their reasons for debuting in an industry dominated by thin idols, Jiyeon answered, “People these days tend to favor thin and pretty people. We just wanted to show everyone that people who have weight like us can be just as confident. We want to break the stereotypes of girl groups as only being skinny. Hopefully our debut can console women who have been hurt because to their weight.”

However, the group acknowledged the painful reality they’re facing against in the competition against other girl groups. Fortunately, they’ve got weapons to battle their way to the top: talent.

Min Sun elaborated, “Since we’re big, we sound different… Thin people have thinner voices, and in comparison, our voices sound a lot more rich and powerful.”

At the mention of pure talent not being enough to last in today’s industry, Ji Eun added, “You can consider our concept somewhere between Big Mama and 2NE1. We have the vocal talent of Big Mama, and the performance style of 2NE1. With both styles, we’ll be trying our best to perfect both.”

First of all, the average weight of these three is 147 lbs! I'd place bets that since one is much bigger than the other two, that means two of them barely tip 135. If they're over 5'1" that puts them in a healthy weight range. Also, Piggy Dolls? PIGGY DOLLS?

WHY DO WE CARE HOW MUCH RICE YOU EAT IN A WEEK? Do we really have to perpetuate the stereotype that anyone who weighs over 110 pounds spends the entire day cramming food into their faces? And that pizza intro? THE INTRO WHERE THEY JAM TWO SLICES OF PIZZA INTO THEIR FACES AT A TIME AND GUZZLE MILK FROM A GALLON JUG? Did Big Mama pull this crap? Preaching to respect fat people while marketing healthy girls as a freak show is absurd.

I am too sick and flu-y to put up with this nonsense. Show me their production company so I know in what direction to fire my spit.

PS: They sound fine, one of them is amazingly cute, and the song is nice enough. The above rant courtesy of someone who's been both the fat and the skinny girl and was the same danged person inside for all of it, you jerks. Some restrictions may apply, not valid in Canada.

I'm with PQ, really. I love the concept of this, the girls really aren't that typical, stick-thing skinny spaghetti leg like we see in Korean music, or any music really. They are a little on the heavy set side, but I wouldn't call them "fat."
But the name of this group...
No. Just no.

WHY DO WE CARE HOW MUCH RICE YOU EAT IN A WEEK? Do we really have to perpetuate the stereotype that anyone who weighs over 110 pounds spends the entire day cramming food into their faces? And that pizza intro? THE INTRO WHERE THEY JAM TWO SLICES OF PIZZA INTO THEIR FACES AT A TIME AND GUZZLE MILK FROM A GALLON JUG? Did Big Mama pull this crap? Preaching to respect fat people while marketing healthy girls as a freak show is absurd.

This was exactly what I was thinking. I totally enjoy the fact that they're trying to stray away from the only skinny girls can be idols thing but yeah they're totally going about it the wrong way. This group totally has talent and nice strong voices, but (from the interview) they're kind of riding on the fact that they're a heavier girl group to gain publicity.

And yeah a name like "Piggy Dolls" is totally going to console women who have issues with their weight x.x

Maybe it's just me, but I was a little underwhelmed by their vocals. That's not to say that I don't think they're talented, because they are (I especially like the voice of the girl on the left in the live performances), but if they're going to compare themselves to Big Mama (who relayed the same message a bit more effectively, IMHO), they should know that they're setting the bar up pretty high. They're a talented group, and they're getting attention. The trick now is keeping the attention going after the initial curiosity has subsided.

I hope they don't confuse accepting yourself no matter your size with being healthy. I'm all for preaching the former, but advertising unhealthy eating habits isn't a winning situation for anyone.

It always disgusts me when people in the media act as if being overweight is ok.Do these people not care about the picture they portray ?It's not healthy to be overweight. I know it myself.

Please die as fast as you can, useless group. I couldn't agree more with hoshi's last sentence.

That's kind of unnecessary to say, imo. You can be somewhat over weight and be perfectly healthy. I myself wear a size 12, weigh 63 kg (140 lb), am 155 cm (about 5'0/5'1) tall, have a BMI of around 26. . . and no doctor can find a damn thing wrong with me, because I dance, exercise, generally eat pretty healthy (much more so than my naturally skinny friends, who eat only junk food because they can get away with it due to their metabolism), and am in good shape. Under my slight flubber, I ac Some people are naturally heavier, it's called genetics.

They're not promoting being unhealthy - being unhealthy is being someone who is naturally built to be thicker and starving yourself/over exercising to try and get to a socially acceptable size - aka being me two years ago. I would say they're hopefully promoting self acceptance. . . because if everyone was meant to be skinny, everyone would be skinny. Someone overweight can be unhealthy and... so can someone at a totally normal weight. You can't LOOK at someone and tell whether or not they're in good shape - that is a fallacy. I am about the same size as the smaller two of this group, maybe slightly smaller, and I can't speak for them, but I know I'm perfectly healthy.

Ahem, so anyway. Yeah, sorry, but Big Mama > this group, not to mention Big Mama were handled much better. I want a group of thicker ladies who... don't give a fuck and don't talk about it or make a big deal out of it, and that's what Big Mama are. I pretty much agree with everything said by Plum.

It always disgusts me when people in the media act as if being overweight is ok.Do these people not care about the picture they portray ?It's not healthy to be overweight. I know it myself.

It disgusts you? That's... interesting, to say the least. My roommate doesn't eat vegetables at all (as in, none. ever.) and survives off of meat and starches as her only diet in addition to having some kind of gastrointestinal condition doctors haven't been able to diagnose yet that causes her to get sick and have stomach pain after every meal. She's smack in the middle of the healthy weight range for her height, which is about 130-140 lbs. How much one weighs says very little of the condition of one's body other than how high or low the BMI happens to be. I'm a vegetarian now, but for years when I ate meat, I was almost always underweight by about thirty pounds according to where I should be. If you saw me, you most likely wouldn't think I should be thirty pounds heavier to meet some standard of appropriate weight, but that's where I am nonetheless, and I'd say I'm pretty damn healthy for the most part.

Having said that, I'm gonna be honest and say I reeeeeaaally dislike Korea's perception of weight and it gives me an awful eye twitch every time I hear an insensitive comment about it on variety shows. Hearing comments over and over about how people don't view Shindong of Super Junior as an idol, how people didn't expect much of him when he debuted, etc. just grates on my nerves every time, always made worse by WHO'S saying it (Shindong himself has said ridiculously insensitive shit about overweight women). I understand the Western world (or at least the U.S.) beats the issue of being sensitive to weight a bit TOO much, but my Foreign Culture goggles can never seem to get rid of that eye twitch.

But half of me is wondering if I've just got some stick up my ass from being raised in a weight-conscious society and am being overly sensitive to this stuff or if it's really as appalling as it's making me feel.

I don't think there's anything wrong in the media portraying bigger women and men as successful people who are happy with their weight and don't see a reason to change it. Yes, promote that being healthy and partaking in healthy activities is good, but I'd have an even bigger stick lodged up my ass if the media went about trying to do so by acting like weight = health.

On topic to the specific group here, I'm disappointed in all the wasted potential of a "bigger girl group" for all the reasons other people have said above already. :\ Their "bigger voices" don't seem much bigger to me, their debut song is not all that interesting, and the standard of girls their size being big or even "piggy dolls" irks that same eye twitch somewhere. But hey, if they can work this shtick, I hope they do it in style and accomplish everything great they're setting out to do.

I think it is a terrible that so many give faux concern over "health" when we're really just fat-shaming people into our weight ideals. I've got lots of skinny friends who do nothing but smoke all day. I've got heavier friends that run 3 miles daily. I know it is different if we're talking about obesity but these "piggy dolls" are nowhere near obese.

I stopped being concerned about cultural bias when my 11 year old cousin was hospitalized for anorexia.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, apparently wondered aloud at a recent speaking engagement whether or not "fat [was becoming] the new race."

I have noticed an interesting trend in America in that people absolutely are judgemental about overweight people, but it's now become somewhat the cool thing to pretend that you aren't... Almost like people who make a point to show how much they "don't care" if their friends are gay, or of another race, or whatever else. It's another way to say, "Look how progressive and open-minded I am!"

Europe has a take on things decidedly closer to the Korean one, however. That's all I'll say on that topic.

And yes, it absolutely IS appalling to be so judgemental. Everyone has flaws... overeating to the point of becoming overweight isn't actually worse than undereating or eating poorly (and still being thin), drinking too much, smoking, drug use, or even just laziness. Fat people just "wear" their shame, making it so much easier for jerks to be jerks. How about paying attention to the fact that many idols use incredibly unhealthy methods to attain this ideal of beauty? Surely it can't be wrong when it results in girls being as hot as SNSD, right?

Lay off, quit dehumanizing people, and grow up.

Edit: Hahaha, the BBS's current title in context of this thread! I want the new thread title to be "Piggy Dolls - THE PLOT THICKENS."

Gonna be honest here: kind of have a thing for chubby guys. I think it's a cute, warm, and endearing trait. Now, of course there's always standards; you gotta get your shit in order: hair, smell, skin, etc..

But I also see some insanity in these pride-in-fat groups that encourage extreme obesity. Regardless of your body type, you have to at least try to live healthily a little bit instead of just "haters gon' hate" all day.

I think it is a terrible that so many give faux concern over "health" when we're really just fat-shaming people into our weight ideals. I've got lots of skinny friends who do nothing but smoke all day. I've got heavier friends that run 3 miles daily. I know it is different if we're talking about obesity but these "piggy dolls" are nowhere near obese.

I stopped being concerned about cultural bias when my 11 year old cousin was hospitalized for anorexia.

Yep, I have plenty of friends in the military and nearly all of them are chubbier--they just have super toned legs and arms--whereas the most unhealthy people I know are the skinnier ones. My roommate with the gastrointestinal problem for one has a terribly weak immune system and is always sick simply because she won't take care of herself.

I think I recall you mentioning a very young relative of yours being diagnosed with anorexia before too, and both then and now I still think that's a really sad age to have to deal with something like that... I know that life was definitely not sugar and rainbows from a social standpoint for me when I was that age, but the issues I dealt with then were definitely not anything as serious as eating disorders. That's definitely a scary progression for someone in that age group since I'm thinking it had to develop over a period of time and didn't just pop out of the blue just in time to be diagnosed.

post

Aw, you took the gif away! (It was insanely fun to watch though!)

I don't notice a lot of weight insensitivity from people in general in my little corner of the world so I can't really personally speak to how judgmental I'm sure people can be, but it's actually really surprising to hear Europe isn't more open-minded about it. I've always heard Europe touted as so much more progressive than America and blah blah, so it's weird to imagine we could possibly be ahead at all in something... if we are, that is. I can't really think of a single time I've been witness to someone being treated unfairly when it came to weight, but I'm also thinking that's because people can be real cowards when it comes to doing anything on an individual basis and might only be "mentally discriminating" against obesity in some sort of pack mentality, or something.

But I also see some insanity in these pride-in-fat groups that encourage extreme obesity. Regardless of your body type, you have to at least try to live healthily a little bit instead of just "haters gon' hate" all day.

That's definitely another problem, and I think that's what Ap was getting at in some small way. But you also have to understand that societal perceptions--especially when it comes to how the discriminated person(s) views themselves--requires baby steps. Looking at the Korean idol scene now as an example, I'd find it hard to imagine the public's perception of weight changing without that one drastic person/group/public figure to violently shake it up. I guess I believe more in the Malcolm X approach in that only outspoken, unrelenting pride of a societal stigma can make waves in changing the world's perception as a whole. Because of that, I think it's possible to see a group like this as doing something positive in a small way--I just personally really hate the way they're going about it, but that's another issue that I'm choosing to see as a personal one for right now.

Also, after calming down and watching them live, I take back what I said about their debut song being uninteresting. The PV's food intro probably gave me hazy rage goggles and badly affected the way I saw the rest of the video. They sing amazingly well live, especially for a debut, if that IS entirely live and all. Though I'm still not hearing "bigger" voices, but maybe I couldn't help thinking of bigger voices like Aretha Franklin and Chaka Khan the moment they said that and that ruined my seeing what they meant by it.

It always disgusts me when people in the media act as if being overweight is ok.Do these people not care about the picture they portray ?It's not healthy to be overweight. I know it myself.

It disgusts you? That's... interesting, to say the least.

Yes, it disgusts me that such people don't think about the young ones that are overweight. It's not cool if you're overweight, just as it is not cool being addicted to something else.Being overweight is not healthy, that's a fact and I don't know why you seem to say something different.

I myself am overweight and am tying to lose weight for about 3 years now. (and I did lose some, but I'm not at my goal yet, my BMI is 24,x now)

overeating to the point of becoming overweight isn't actually worse than undereating or eating poorly (and still being thin), drinking too much, smoking, drug use, or even just laziness. Fat people just "wear" their shame, making it so much easier for jerks to be jerks. How about paying attention to the fact that many idols use incredibly unhealthy methods to attain this ideal of beauty? Surely it can't be wrong when it results in girls being as hot as SNSD, right?

It was actually ME who calculated the BMI of the SNSD girls, stating how Sooyoung is way too skinny for my taste and how the, according to SM Entertainment info, nutrition of the girls is not enough and unhealthy. Of course anorexia websites and all that bullshit is just as stupid, but that's like saying "there are other stupid people that do stupid things, so it's ok if I'm doing stupid things too".So I have no clue why the backlash. It seems as if I've hit a soft spot.

@showraniy; I guess you can call Europe to be more against obesity because of the health care system in most/all of the countries here. Paying for treatment because some people overdo it with the food is not cool. Same goes for other shit that can be extremely unhealthy when overused etc.

Yes, it disgusts me that such people don't think about the young ones that are overweight. It's not cool if you're overweight, just as it is not cool being addicted to something else.

Um... Being overweight in and of itself is not an addiction though being obsessed with weight in one way or another can develop into addictions such as anorexia and possibly even an obsession with weight gain. And how are the celebrities who are proud of being bigger not thinking of the young ones? It seems you're dead-set on the idea that being chubbier or bigger in general is equivalent to being unhealthy.

If celebrities who are heavier aren't allowed to publicly be proud or just plain happy with their body types, you don't think that's worse for the bigger and/or overweight youth who look up to them? They too are supposed to feel wrong for being that way? If they can't be proud of it, then the only remaining thing is to feel bad because there is no middle ground being demanded when you're talking about someone's identity or state of being. You can't really tell me not to be proud of being a woman without also conveying the message that there is inherently something of which to be ashamed regarding it. Take into account that there are also plenty of people for whom obesity is also the result of more complex medical conditions which result in hormonal imbalances that make it more difficult to lose weight ([url="http://"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycystic_ovary_syndrome"]Polycystic ovary syndrome being one[/url]). People in those situations can be far more active than any skinny person for miles but it is simply much harder for them to lose the weight. And so why should they? They live healthy lives on their own by taking good care of themselves. Yes, their weight has the potential to brand them as high risk for future medical problems like heart attack, but based on skewed logic of their weight equalling their health, they should stress themselves and their bodies out more just to lose it to fit a societal view of healthy rather than a medical one? No one's saying stuff your face with a Whopper at 500 lbs of your own making and run around proud to be your own source of weight gain, but guilt-tripping someone into feeling bad about his or her own body in the hopes that he or she will see something wrong with it and thus want to change it statistically leads quicker to suicide than actual weight loss. That's also not forgetting crash dieting which is even unhealthier since it weakens your body over time and can also lead to heart and other organ failure if done enough times.

I know you haven't directly said that overweight people should be guilt-tripped or ridiculed to lose the weight, but I don't think you can totally ignore a group of people from being role models either without basically demanding that over the long term. Even if celebrities didn't advocate being proud of their weight, fans and others who look up to them would still associate the connection of an overweight person--a condition they also suffer from--being successful and all around someone to look up to. I know I don't need to have a successful person's status as a black American thrown in my face to associate myself as a fellow black American with him or her who is able to achieve success. So hell, even if they were forbidden to talk about being proud of, say, being black and the President, I would still associate the race with my own and therefore the success with something I can achieve.

@showraniy; I guess you can call Europe to be more against obesity because of the health care system in most/all of the countries here. Paying for treatment because some people overdo it with the food is not cool. Same goes for other shit that can be extremely unhealthy when overused etc.

That sounds similar to the complaints the U.S. has constantly about welfare, so I guess I could somewhat understand being upset about potentially taking care of a group of people who have a high risk state of... I don't know--living. But just like I don't find the complaints here of not wishing to pay welfare to take care of the poor in America okay, I can't really condone a nationwide attack on a group of people just because they don't want to pay for it. Obesity is viewed so negatively because it's seen as a life choice instead of a condition--and I do understand that that's just a difference in view point--but I also view that perception the same way I do with people who view being gay as a choice. Hate them all you want for their "choice," but that's no reason to deny them the right to be happy with their own lives.

For a more succinct version of all this, I think eri's post summed it up nicely in that it's pressuring people to be skinny just because it's some socially constructed view of being healthy. I'd actually be interested in some maybe projected statistics of how many skinny people got that way or are staying that way with unhealthy means.

(Sorry too if this is tangent-y and missed your point. It's 4:30 AM and I have class later on today, so I'm passing out for now and will come back later to see if I missed something. )

EDIT: I guess in the end, I'm just asking for you to understand that obesity and heavier weight in general is caused by a variety of factors that do not always involve overeating, and the solution is not as easy or simple as eating less. So either way the solution to not paying for potential health issues down the road through healthcare is more complex than, "You're fat. That's bad. Lose weight."

I guess in the end, I'm just asking for you to understand that obesity and heavier weight in general is caused by a variety of factors that do not always involve overeating, and the solution is not as easy or simple as eating less. So either way the solution to not paying for potential health issues down the road through healthcare is more complex than, "You're fat. That's bad. Lose weight."

I said being overweight is unhealthy.You talk about SO many things that I didn't even mention, nor has it anything at all (crash diet e.g.) to do with what I said. It's as if you are just throwing things at me to denounce what I said.I also never said that everybody who is overweight is 100% lazy and just eating shit. Of course there are those who have medical conditions, but, again, that does not change the fact that being overweight is unhealthy.

Let me draw an analogy between this and a recent song that in my opinion is disgusting.Kesha - Tik Tok, she sings about "Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack". Wow, great, because alcohol is so cool and totally not harmful in any way...Do I like drinking alcohol on the weekend ? Yes. Do I hate how it is portrayed in this song ? Absolutely.Do I like eating fast food once or twice a month ? Yes. Do I hate how being overweight can be portrayed as something that's "totally ok" and not unhealthy ? Absolutely.

Being overweight is unhealthy, I don't know why we're even discussing this and I think it's ridiculous we're actually doing this. Are you seriously trying to tell me being overweight is not unhealthy ? Because that's the impression I get. To me, you seem to want to justify being overweight. Which, again, is something I did not talk about. Even for those people who have an extremely hard time to lose weight (because of a medical condition e.g.) it is not healthy to be overweight. And I'm pretty sure the ones with medical conditions are in the absolute minority.

Being overweight is unhealthy, I don't know why we're even discussing this and I think it's ridiculous we're actually doing this. Are you seriously trying to tell me being overweight is not unhealthy ? Because that's the impression I get. To me, you seem to want to justify being overweight. Which, again, is something I did not talk about. Even for those people who have an extremely hard time to lose weight (because of a medical condition e.g.) it is not healthy to be overweight. And I'm pretty sure the ones with medical conditions are in the absolute minority.

We're not saying that being overweight is not unhealthy. But not everyone that is skinny is healthy. I believe the term is skinny-fat, where they may be a size 0 but I can outrun them, out lift them, eat healthier, and in general outperform them even though I am not a size 0. Looks aren't a factor here. Even if you have a fast metabolism if you eat shit then your arteries are going to be just as clogged as the overweight person eating the same shit.

But for overweight girls, especially young girls who need role models, having someone who is overweight too and accepts themselves is healthier for their mindset than hearing how horrible it is to be fat all day. Eating disorders are common in younger people because the magazines and media stars create an unhealthy image for them. It is just as unhealthy to be underweight as it is to be overweight, and many korean (and japanese for that matter) stars are underweight and under pressure to stay in that same unhealthy range.

A big cause of many people's overeating is emotional issues. They turn to food as some sort of comfort, or rather, a form of control in a chaotic life. Bullying, nasty looks from people in public, watching the media look down upon fat people can cause depression and make them eat more and cause a vicious cycle. A fat person in the media accepting their weight and telling girls that their body image is okay is a great step in healing/ending that depression. Should any of those girls start a healthy diet and lose weight, it would be inspiring to all those girls who admired them because it would prove they can do it too. That's why over here so many weight loss shows are so popular, because it's inspiring.

Anyway, I would argue the majority of obesity related issues is due to overeating as a coping mechanism to bad things in life. A smaller percentage is due to other health problems, and perhaps a smaller percentage is due to laziness. Being overweight is bad for health, however, calling them fat and disgusting is not going to fix the problem. In fact, it's going to make it worse.

I was talking about how to portray the image, not about overweight people themselves. That's what I wrote in my first comment, "act as if being overweight is ok", just as it is not ok to say "I'm an alcohol addict and don't give a fuck" or whatever. I did not say "I can't see why people would ever eat a lot/get overweight/addicted to bla bla etc.". I was not talking about the reasons in my first post at all, I was just saying it's not ok to portray being overweight as a "totally cool" lifestyle, when it is unhealthy.

As for the underweight shit, which of course is also unhealthy, agaaaaain, why drag this into the discussion ? I don't see how that has anything to do with what I said.I say "being overweight is unhealthy", you say "but being underweight is also unhealthy". Do you see now why this is so upsetting for me ? It has nothing to do with my initial statement. That is EXACTLY what you wrote in your first two sentences too now.

Why can't the Piggy Dolls make a song about losing weight together and be healthier ? "Hey, it's ok that you've become overweight, you're probably not even responsible for it. But let's get healthy together, ok ?" sounds like a great plan to me. You make it sound as if the people on the media can only be one of two extremes; be happily overweight or say food is the devil's work. Why shouldn't people like the Piggy Dolls motivate young boys and girls that are in a similar condition to get healthier ?I actually did this in the GameTrailers board three years ago and we were a few dozen people that did it, helped eachother with tips for food, exercice and especially motivation. My motivation was to watch some jpop videos before starting my workout programm. Laugh all you want, but it helped me.

I hardly ever back out of discussions before they are really over, since that is extremely annoying, but I don't see any reason to defend myself for a fourth time, probably having to use the same arguments again. There's just so much involvement of unrelated stuff from everybody that it's really frustrating.

This thread is making me paranoid about my exercising habits.
I've always been skinny, but for as long as I can remember, even in 3rd grade, I could never run a lot compared to other kids. I always feel like throwing up at some point. WHY!
Does anyone want to talk to me about this? Sorry.

I honestly had a count down to when Ap would whip back with "I guess I hit a soft spot." It's a soft spot for a lot of people, first of all... but if it was meant as "I wonder why you're so protective of the fatties" I answered that question in my very first post, albeit in white tinytext.

I will say this: the argument was never whether it's okay to eat three whole cakes per day and be air-lifted out of your home or not, it was about how essential it is to treat people with respect whether or not they do. Piggy Dolls' (Oh, hey! This is a K-pop thread, whoa!) marketing failed to do that with that intro, the name, etc.

Here is what I am saying and have been saying all along, even though I sometimes did it with caps lock on.

Being bigger does not mean a girl is not allowed to feel confident, or happy, or treated with kindness. They're not mutually exclusive. If a big girl wants to show other big girls that you are still a valuable human being even without an ideal weight, then that is ABSOLUTELY an honorable endeavor. So many people seem intent on shaming overweight people constantly until they change themselves, and feel our society and media should fall in line (which is hilarious since the media is far from promoting being overweight as cool). If you were going to be Mr. Health Crusader, you should technically be a watchdog for ALL poor health habits. Which is a big job, since you'd be yelling at about 90% of the Western world. Again, we pick "fat" because it's visual, and (to many) ugly, and it's just so easy to spot the bad habit.

Furthermore, why are we shaming at all? I can tell you this much: it never works. Taking respect out of the equation just makes people lash out. My mother smoked for years, and while it crushed me that her health was suffering, it wasn't actually (and this is important) any of my business to tell her she HAD to quit! She came to the conclusion that she'd like to quit on her own, and I was there for her when she did. The most I could do before that was express that I was ready to support her, should she ever be ready.

I'm not saying to promote fat, I'm saying to promote basic human respect. Another neat side effect is that when you treat everyone with the same respect, things like the cause of their obesity tend to become a moot point anyway.

Of course being obese is unhealthy. No one is saying otherwise. If you are too heavy to walk, if you have type 2 diabetes and cannot produce insulin, if you have fucked up joints, if you can't walk a mile without collapsing etc....yeah that is a health risk. Are these girls obese?

You are consistently confusing health with a certain weight (too heavy and too thin are not healthy and therefore not good) in every single post. This isn't like, a personal flaw of yours. Every developed country has been totally fucked in confusing social norms of beauty with "health." We think "healthy" and beauty are interchangeable when they are tangentially related.

Weight is much more complicated than that. This is a scientific fact. This is why people are scrambling to understand why America has an obesity problem AND an explosion of eating disorders instead of relying on "hurhur Americans are lazy" logic . Weight is a lot about your family background, your stress levels, your class, where you live, accessibility to healthy food, the chemicals in your food, and the sheer biological fact that weight once gained is almost impossible to take off.

1. If this is really about health, then think about what defines "health." If I can walk, am non-diabetic, can run a mile, can bench press XX, etc. What are the parameters for health in terms of active living and not in terms of what a person LOOKS like?

2. This is not about defending fat people but about thinking through BS. I'm not sure about nesh but the rest of us dissenters are women who have probably experienced first hand how bullshit "weight concern" is and how damaging it can be. I don't know - I feel like you're getting really defensive because you think we're trying to take you down. It isn't that. Some of us just see through so-called "simple facts" and see socially-produced, culturally-conditioned warping of rather complicated facts. And hysteria over fat women in media is almost never just about "health."

3. Kesha I totally thought of her too. Anyway, there is a difference in saying "I might need to improve on ___ but it is okay to be me" and Kesha saying "OMG BAD HABITS ARE GREAT." edit: Plum said it best - why should anyone feel inhuman? Anyway, I don't think people can be motivated to be healthy if they are trained to hate themselves.

--

Strawberry! My old best friend in elementary school had the same problem!! She couldn't run even down the street without throwing up!!!! I think she grew out of it but when we were kids, she used to throw up like 3x a week at school.

Earlier in March, Universal Music Japan held a public contract-signing ceremony with Momoclo and 150 invited fans. At this event, the label held a ‘weigh-in’ section, for which the members of Momoclo had to publicly weigh themselves in front of their fans. In order to debut, their weights had to be below the “Idol weight”, which is calculated at (Height – 100)×0.9. However for Momoclo, they had to follow the formula (Height – 100)×0.8.

...Takagi’s weight was 0.8kg over the “Idol weight.” Thus, she was told to re-weigh herself in 2 months. Takagi re-weighed herself at the end of April, and passed the new condition.

5 months later in October, fans began to worry that Takagi Reni has developed an eating disorder, due to the humiliation she felt at the public weigh-in. Universal Music Japan meant for the corner to be a light-hearted event, but it’s hard to believe that they didn’t consider how there wouldn’t be a psychological repercussion for it.

She is listed to be 158 cm or a little over 5 ft 2.

According to them, idol weight (158-100 *0.9) = 52.2 kg or 115 lbs.Momoclo idol weight is 46.4 kg or 102 lbs.She was 0.8 kg or 1.7 lbs too heavy....which means she was about 117.7 and lost at least 15 lbs in 1.5 months. Maybe someone should figure out that blanket and random formulas for universally deciding proper weights is probably stupid. I'm sure some 5'2" girls are perfectly healthy at 102 lbs or less and I'm sure some 5'2" girls are perfectly healthy at 117 and in no fucking universe are either fat. However, our hysteria over fat leads to shit like this.

If South Korea is like Japan, Piggy Girls might be a necessary intervention in shaming and humiliating women into feeling disgusting, not pretty, not worthy of positive attention.

I was not talking about the reasons in my first post at all, I was just saying it's not ok to portray being overweight as a "totally cool" lifestyle, when it is unhealthy.

As for the underweight shit, which of course is also unhealthy, agaaaaain, why drag this into the discussion ? I don't see how that has anything to do with what I said.I say "being overweight is unhealthy", you say "but being underweight is also unhealthy". Do you see now why this is so upsetting for me ? It has nothing to do with my initial statement. That is EXACTLY what you wrote in your first two sentences too now.

Well, I just woke up when I posted, sorry! Forgive me?

Anyway, I don't think they're promoting it as a cool lifestyle at all. It's not like being fat will EVER be a cool lifestyle. But what it is good for is helping people who are already overweight feel better about themselves, which like I said before, is probably the biggest cause of obesity.

Why can't the Piggy Dolls make a song about losing weight together and be healthier ? "Hey, it's ok that you've become overweight, you're probably not even responsible for it. But let's get healthy together, ok ?" sounds like a great plan to me. You make it sound as if the people on the media can only be one of two extremes; be happily overweight or say food is the devil's work. Why shouldn't people like the Piggy Dolls motivate young boys and girls that are in a similar condition to get healthier ?I actually did this in the GameTrailers board three years ago and we were a few dozen people that did it, helped eachother with tips for food, exercice and especially motivation. My motivation was to watch some jpop videos before starting my workout programm. Laugh all you want, but it helped me.

That would be a good plan, but I'm not sure if they would ever do it because it would undermine the image they're going for (having confidence in yourself no matter what size you are). Perhaps after they've been in the business awhile they could go for it.

And so long as it motivates you, who cares if it's not considered cool or something! Besides, I use jpop/kpop to motivate me too as I exercise~ Along with photos of fitness models I admire~

I hardly ever back out of discussions before they are really over, since that is extremely annoying, but I don't see any reason to defend myself for a fourth time, probably having to use the same arguments again. There's just so much involvement of unrelated stuff from everybody that it's really frustrating.

Well, that is because being overweight/fat is rarely the black/white issue you want to portray it as. Like Plum, I'm a nutrition/exercise geek as well and you can't simplify it into one tidy answer. All we have done is name the multitudes of things that lead to it/contribute/perpetuate it. There's no need to consider it defending yourself, I merely saw it as a discussion about weight; but also remember you have a thing about saying things rather....bluntly, to say the least, and that tends to make people respond in that particular manner.

What most of you guys said is, as I expected, again completely besides the point. (didn't even need a countdown) I could just copy and paste my previous two posts. Most of it I'd even agree with, but it has nothing to do with what I said. I think of me what you want, I give up.

Anyway, I don't think they're promoting it as a cool lifestyle at all.

In the beginning they are in a rundown apartment, eating pizza in front of a TV and there are close-ups of the food...That's the lifestyle they are promoting. That's my problem with these three. It's as if they're trying tell the watcher "we're fucking clichés".

If they were working out at home and then heard the news report, now that would have been a great twist, saying "stop talking bad about us !". Basically ANY other intro would have been better. This is just horribly bad.

Of course being obese is unhealthy.

Good, I said nothing else, except for that's it not good to promote unhealthy behaviour.See how easy this could have been ?

Sorry, Ap, if you felt attacked at all! That wasn't my intention in the slightest, so I'm really very sorry if it came off that way. But essentially, yes, you are treating weight as a black and white issue and that is what I think all the other posters here are taking issue with. Nothing--especially weight--is a simple problem at all, and I am outright going to say that being overweight is NOT always an unhealthy thing since you continued to hit that point in your posts. Yes, it most certainly can LEAD to health problems if it's excessive (e.g. obesity), but being overweight by itself is proven to not always be unhealthy. And of course, there are underlying factors with your opinion that celebrities and the media should not portray being overweight as being okay. The moment you do something like that, you're opening the door to a vicious cycle of not motivation, but humiliation and depression which perpetuate the issue. But all this has been said much more eloquently by the people above, so I'll leave it at that.

I know you're frustrated because you don't understand why all these "unrelated" things keep popping up in your simple ideal of overweight = bad, but it's because it really is a very complicated issue that's connected to so many other things. As you can see, no one can address the issue WITHOUT bringing in a thousand other things because one issue is directly connected to all these other ones that must be addressed before you can fix the main issue at all. But again, I'm really sorry you felt attacked or frustrated because that's not what I at least was trying to do. E-hug and make up?

But hey, if Piggy Dolls makes waves in Korea as a positive thing for overweight girls, I feel that's a step in the right direction. Take them from feeling subhuman to being able to be proud of who they are, and the moment you do that, you give them the power to want to change their lives for the better. Trying to change someone without uplifting them first has a high probability of just continuing the problem.

FACT: Being overweight... not always unhealthy. This is a fallacy. Obesity? It's pretty much damn impossible to be healthy and obese. . . but five, 10, 15, even sometimes 20 lbs over weight? You're not going to feel much different than if you were thinner, health wise, if the weight suits your body. According to the BMI, I should weigh around 110 lbs. At 140 lbs, I can wear a medium in shirts. . . at 110 lbs, I would be fucking skin and bones, and even at this weight now, my damn hip bones are so boney I once gave someone a black eye. I have a broad bone structure - I should have to shop at exclusively plus size stores, but I don't. . . because my body actually wants to be this weight. Despite constant exercise and generally eating healthily. . . I stay this weight, this is me after LOSING weight (I once weighed 15 lbs more than this after a bout of depression that caused me to gain weight.) I was obese on the BMI and yet not even plus size. I only wore a size 12/14.

Because MY body has a predisposition to be naturally thicker, and that's OKAY. And I'm fucking glad there's a group out there to promote that message - not everyone has to be the same. Weight is not a one size fits all situation. There's this false idea that all average women have to be in the 105-115 weight range to be healthy, and all average sized men have to be the 130-180 size weight range to be healthy. And it's based entirely on this fallacy that you can LOOK at someone and understand the inner workings of their body and assess their healthiness. People are going to look at me and think "She can't run a mile, haha. Fatty." and they're going to look at my size 3 friend who eats only junk food and chills out on her computer all day and think "She's in great shape!"

Being thin? Not always healthy. Being thick (you know, chubby, not obese, but bigger than average?)? Not always unhealthy. Being a normal weight? STILL not always healthy!

I was also pissed off by the pizza eating opening to the video, but a different reason. It reinforces pointless stereotypes, "Ooo, look at the lazy fatty stuffing their face!" when in reality most overweight people I know are significantly more health conscious than those who are naturally thin. I have to work just to stay THIS size - why reinforce stereotypes that people like me are just fuckin' around eating cake? Wtf.